Navtor
About Smedvig The Norwegian naval captain Peder Smedvig founded a shipping company in Stavanger in 1915, which over the first half of last century became one of the larger ship owners in Norway. When oil was discovered in the North Sea, the company moved in 1960s into the offshore oil industry with investments in supply ships, oil tankers and in 1973 built the first Norwegian owned drilling rig “West Venture”. The company acquired multiple rigs throughout the 1970s and 1980s and took the drilling company public in 1990. Today Smedvig Family Office is an international investment company with interest in multiple asset classes. Smedvig still remains in Stavanger with its main office and with the establishment of NAVTOR the company has reentered the shipping industry. With its head office in Egersund, NAVTOR has a team of personnel with extensive experience in the development, marketing, sales and support of official electronic charts and navigational information services for the professional maritime market. NAVTOR has a subsidiary in St. Petersburg manned by experienced technical experts specialized in the field of ECDIS kernels and maritime software development. As carriage requirements for ENCs move towards an official IMO mandate, Smedvig saw the opportunity to establish an e-navigation company to provide electronic navigation services for the distribution and updating of electronic charts and related maritime information. In Egersund, a coastal town south of Stavanger well known for its maritime electronic industry, Smedvig established NAVTOR in the summer of 2011 together with experienced personnel from the maritime industry, all with extensive experience in electronic chart production and distribution. The ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System) will be the central navigation console aboard ships once the IMO mandate comes into force from July 2012. ECDIS manufacturers, data and information providers will meet the growing demand from the maritime industry and NAVTOR will join forces with these players to jointly develop and supply a fully automated cost-effective, user-friendly electronic maritime navigation services. The ECDIS is the navigation information center on the bridge will also be able to offer and display more than electronic charts. Hence NAVTOR will provide additional services in combination with an innovative service for official ENC charts. Combining weather prediction and information, safe and economical routing and other relevant navigational information, NAVTOR will be the modern navigator’s prime source of digital nautical information.